


Looking for Love

by Christian_Richtown



Category: DCU (Comics), Grayson (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Brief mention of homophobia, Familiars, First Meetings, Foreign Language, M/M, Not a lot but it's there, Police Officer Dick Grayson, Tiger speaks Pashtun, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 15:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13684746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christian_Richtown/pseuds/Christian_Richtown
Summary: In which Tiger is a witch on the East side of Bludhaven and Dick comes into his shop looking for some help with his love problems. Obviously Helena is a terrible - wonderful? - wing-man.





	Looking for Love

Tiger is just closing shop when Dick Grayson walks into his store. It’s not an earth-shattering moment, or anything out of the ordinary, even if the man is the sort of beautiful that makes him double take. But there’s something about the way his heart seems to stutter that makes him pause and take notice.

Dick is in a jacket and jeans and a gray tee-shirt with BPD printed on the front, and Tiger takes in his bright eyes and darker skin in a preliminary assessment of ethnicity, which lends greatly to magic. And he has no doubt Dick has magic. It’s muted and small, not a large gift, but still there, brightening his soul, so much so that Dick is quite possibly the brightest thing in his whole shop.

He slowly puts down his broom and ignores the all too knowing gazes of his familiars from where they’re lazing in the last remnants of sunlight on the floor to greet him.

“ _Maakhaam mo pa kheyr,_ ” he says in welcome. “How may I help you?”

“Helena sent me,” is the first thing Dick says, all smiles and laughing eyes. “She says you’re the best.”

“I am,” Tiger tells him and it’s not even a boast. He knows his strengths and what his magic can do, and depending on what is needed, he truly  _is_  the best at healing magic this side of Bludhaven.

His serious tone only gets him a chuckle as Dick’s blue, blue gaze flickers this way and that, taking in all the odds and ends of his magic shop. After a moment, his eyes alight on Tiger again and only get more excited, like Tiger is just as wondrous as the rest of it.

Tiger raises an eyebrow at that, waiting, and Dick laughs, realizing that he’s been staring, and begins to explain, “Sorry, I need -”

“I know what you need,” Tiger cuts him off and takes his hand, not quite realizing it sounds like some pick up line until both his black cats huff in their signature laughs and Dick’s cheeks turn scarlet. Undeterred, Tiger just cups the man’s fingers, as though to raise them to his lips, and reaches out with his magic. A playful, curious energy touches his in return and Tiger draws it in, parsing through what all it tells him. After a moment of quiet, he has the answers he needs.

“You’re looking for love,” he says dryly, gently letting Dick’s fingers slide away from his own. “Richard John Grayson, age twenty-four, police officer, innate Romani magic. You go by Dick,” he adds with a bit of a furrowed brow. “Though I’m not sure why you would shorten a great name. Powerful ruler, if my translation is correct.”

Dick breaths out slow and deep, as though he’d been holding it in. “Well, fuck,” he whispers, cheeks still rosy, and touches the  _Sara e Kali_  pendant dangling from his neck, “that was sexy.”

Tiger snorts at that. “You’re also an idiot,” he says, more lightly, and silently enjoys the pout he gets. “I do not do ‘love spells’ here,” he continues, getting to business before those lips drive him to distraction. “I do not believe in influencing anyone against their will with my abilities. I can, however, offer a scrying, or a calming stone to settle you.”

Dick nods quickly. “I don’t want any love spell,” he promises. “I’m lonely, but not  _that_  lonely.” He makes a disgusted face as though to further his view on the matter. “Helena said you offer some… hm, reassurance? That’s how she put it, I’m not sure what she meant.”

“I can do that,” Tiger nods, knowing what Helena must’ve been getting at, though her angling is becoming clear to him now. Sure, she may have sent Dick here with that as a true motive, but she’s also a terrible matchmaker and he can’t deny Dick Grayson appeals to him in all the ways he is cautious to allow, and he knows, from that touch, that the attraction is mutual. And since Helena always has a double agenda…

 _Remind me to send Helena a long message when this is over,_ he tells his familiars, who just huff their little cat laughs again. He sighs and gestures Dick to follow him to a side room.

Dick goes happily enough, taking in everything with the delight of a child at the North Pole, perhaps, or in a candy store. “Your shop is amazing.”

“Thank you,” Tiger says and waves a hand over a locked box that clicks open once it feels his magic. Inside lay a pile of earthen stones and gems and he takes Dick’s hand again, drawing the man’s magic into himself before feeling through the rocks and setting a few aside. As he goes, he tells Dick what they are, and why his magic is calling for them. Abalone, for protection and healing; Amethyst, for calmness and soothing; Carnelian, for confidence; Labradorite to enhance magic and curiosity.

He puts them in a small velvet bag and hands them over, pleased to see, if only in some dark corner of himself he can allow to  _be_  pleased, that Dick is blushing again from where their hands are touching. There’s something…  _electric_  about touching the man, and Tiger indulges in further contact just long enough to explain the way to meditate with each stone before letting go. Or at least, he tries to, but then he feels Dick’s fingers squeeze his and their eyes meet and his magic  _sings_  and he finds he just can’t muster up the strength to let go just yet.

He hides the pure, naked  _need_  under a calm professional attitude, disguising it all as business. He leads Dick to his scrying pool, a basin of the purest spring water with two slowly swimming koi within, and starts tracing a finger through the water, focusing.

“You seek love,” he murmurs. “Let’s see if I can give you some reassurance that you are not alone.”

Dick makes a soft noise, but seems stunned quiet as Tiger pulls Dick’s magic into the water, like his body is a conduit from lightning bolt to ground. He certainly feels it, given the way the playful energy crackles through his veins. He’s never felt such a reaction before and nearly loses focus, only managing it with a stern thought: that whoever is in Dick’s future had better be worthy of him. The man is bisexual, he knows it through the magic, can feel his likes and dislikes, his needs and wants, where he falters, where he soars. He’s good man, Tiger can feel it, and hates the way his attraction only grows.

To say he’s surprised to see his own reflection in the scrying pool is a bit of an understatement. He blinks, tries again, then nearly splashes the vision he sees right out of existence, knowing that if he were less than what he was, he’d be blushing. Even so, his ears start to burn in warning and, with a thick swallow he forces himself to calmly wave the visage away. But even as it ripples out of focus, it still burns in his mind, and he can feel the phantom kisses already, an echo of Dick’s laugh in his ears, and wonders how he could possibly have this.

“What is it?” Dick asks, bringing him out of his reverie. They’re still holding hands and Dick’s magic is still dancing around his own and Tiger feels a little lost as he shakes his head in wonder.

“It would seem there is someone in your immediate future,” he tells him, and has to smile a little at the way Dick immediately perks up. “A man. A fellow witch.”

Dick takes this in with a glowing smile, his aura humming with energy. “Does he make me happy?” is what he asks, and Tiger nods, a bit dumbly, still seeing Dick’s luminesant grin in his mind’s eye.

Oh yes, he makes -  _will_  make - Dick Grayson very happy. How, he’s not so sure. He’s never really made anyone happy in such a way. He’d never been allowed to love the way his heart cries for. In Afghanistan, it was a death sentence to love another man. As a spy, love was a commodity that only complicated things beyond all reason. And though he’d left the spy life behind after the death of his partner, to focus on healing instead of killing, he’d been hesitant to touch that side of himself that he was born with, even though he was freely exploring his other Allah-given gifts.

He frowns, then sighs at himself. “He’s new to this,” warns Dick. “He’s… never allowed himself to love a man. Has never known the kind of love you crave. He will make you happy, but only if you work on him. Make him better. Be understanding and patient.”

“Of course,” Dick says as easy as breathing, as though there were no other way to do it, and Tiger feels his heart clench almost painfully as pure  _want_ grips him. Not a physical want, he’s felt that before. Easily remedied with meditation and training. But this… this is a bullet to the heart, shards of glass in his soul, but a good pain. A longing pain. One that, should it be lost, would be devastating.

Tiger breathes this in, breathes out. Forces himself to calm. Then he takes Dick’s hand and gives into the urge to kiss the young man’s fingers. He meets his eyes over the knuckles, smiling easily as Dick’s cheeks go back to dark red.

“Well then,” he says lowly, “it would seem I owe Helena one.”

Dick blinks, then his eyes widen, and the grin that overtakes his face is like being in freefall. Exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

“Really?” he asks, excited, gripping his bag of stones to his chest. “You and me?”

“Yes,” Tiger says, kissing those fingers again. His lips tingle as Dick’s magic dances over his skin. “If… well, if you’d want me.”

“Are you serious right now,” Dick huffs. “I mean, holy Adonis? Have you seen you. Yes! My magic has been going crazy since the moment you touched me and, honestly, if my heart keeps stopping you’re going to have to resurrect me.”

He’s laughing now and his eyes are practically crescents, his smile is so wide. “Please, be mine,” he says in a rush, fingers squeezing Tiger’s in a silent plea. “Especially if I make you happy as well.”

Tiger can’t deny that truth, remembering his own quiet, fond smile in the vision, and nods. “One day, yes.”

“Then yes,” Dick says, decided, and leans up to kiss Tiger’s bearded cheek. The tingles migrate from his lips to the spot and he shivers. “Can we get started on that ‘one day’ tonight?”

He looks so eager that there’s really nothing for it but to say yes. Within minutes, Dick’s talked him into his jacket and into dinner, and as Tiger leaves the store, arm in arm with a happily chattering witch, he looks back at his all-knowing cats, and sighs at their amused faces.

 _I’m still sending Helena a very long note,_  he tells them, which they huff at.  _But… remind me to send flowers along._

He can hear their laughter long into the night. But hearing Dick’s own laugh and settling into the awing knowledge that he has the power to make this man happy… well. It’s more than worth it.


End file.
